Eddie Gossling was born in Johnson City, New York,
but you’d swear it was actually Austin, based on the response
he gets here at Cap City--it’s like he’s a native,
a local boy made good, a dignitary with the key to the city and
an alt- celebrity, all rolled into one. But mostly what he is,
and how we ultimately account for that response, comes down to
this: Eddie is immensely funny, an incredibly talented guy who’s
worked extremely hard, and now ever time he sets foot on the Cap
City stage (or any other stage, for that matter), he’s a
riveting, hilarious presence who brings the house down in riotous
fashion. That’s a long way from the motley assortment of
jobs--including horseradish inspector and junior accountant for
a meat factory--that preceded his initial foray into stand-up,
starting out in San Antonio. And even though Eddie is such a favorite
son at Cap City--harking back to the years where he worked as
the club’s house emcee--we can’t help think of him
as our own, people everywhere have noticed what a stellar stand-up
he’s become, and embraced him accordingly. Not just club
audiences, but showbiz types in important places. For example,
as far back as 1995, he won HBO’s “Stand-Up Standoff”
Comic Relief VII competition, and in 1997 he took first places
in the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival talent search. That was followed
by acclaimed appearances at the Chicago Comedy Festival, and then
came a pretty singular triumph on the festival circuit: Booked
a few summers ago at the Just For Laughs International Comedy
Festival in Montreal--widely considered the biggest, most prestigious
comedy event in the world--he became the first act in the festival’s
history to perform on both their “New Faces” show
and on the high-profile the televised “Gala” show.
More recently, he was invited to Just For Laughs to perform on
a number of shows, and hosted a few shows at the festivals highest-profile
venue, Club Soda.